Adventure Zone: The Raven Queen's Request
by Cythieus
Summary: Spoilers for Episode 69 of the Adventure Zone Podcast. Takes place after the final arc of the game and twenty years later. The Raven Queen detects a threat to her domain in the Shadowfell and enlists the help of our boys. But things aren't always goof-goof dildo when you're hanging out with Boner Squad.
1. Chapter 1

The gods aren't truly eternal, not in the way that you would believe a thing to be forever lasting. They would someday be snuffed out when the planes exhausted the last of their energy and ceased to move in harmony anymore and all things ended.

Some of the gods wouldn't even make it to that far off time. They warred with each other and the structure of powers changed. Or when a god had need for something outside of their scope or range, deals would be brokered for favors or control of entire domains of power. This is how the Raven Queen became to hold dominion over Death and Fate and Winter—how she came to sit atop the throne once held by another.

This is why she kept her eye on the machinations of the other Gods in their domains. She removed herself from their immediate influence and took up residence in Shadowfell. And other than a brief bout with Lolth to gain a portion of her power, she stayed out of the squabbles of the gods that existed in the rest of the immaterial plane.

And that is why she was the first to notice the change; it was small at first, not the way that the Hunger had been years before with its sudden severing of bonds between the planar network. This was a smaller thing, more pin-point accurate. Something was granting a portion of power to the undead in the material plane.

It wouldn't have been noticed by anyone on the ground. Even the necromancers who schemed to break the very law which she held above all else wouldn't have felt their influence being tampered with. The shift was only something that she would be looking for. The vital thread of magic that connected undead to the plane where their energy derived and connected their maker to their control was drawing influence from a second place. A plane she couldn't see. A thirteenth plane.

Delicate. That was the word. She was so isolated from the world for so long that she had forgotten her own name, her mother's face, the area that she was born in. Any history or connections that the Raven Queen had were lost to time. So for her to go trouncing about the planes to solve this mystery would draw attention from the other gods. It would be seen as weakness, a chance to strike a deal with her.

Kravtiz, her confidant and avatar had been crucial to stopping the Hunger. It was unusual for her to be this sentimental, but she had kept a souvenir. The remnant of the enemy that had sailed through countless realities devouring all in a perverse attempt to be the only thing and then, later out of gluttony and need: John.

The Raven Queen wasn't very good with names. She had seen billions of lives come and go in her time, but she needed a name from this John. Ravens made of living shadow of Shadowfell toyed with him day and night, slicing bits of him off and giving his form time to remake itself into a cognitive image of the person who first left his home plane hundreds of years ago. And then beginning to do it all over again.

She rarely checked in on John, but this time when she paid him a visit he seemed to sense something had changed. He stopped screaming long enough to lift his head and stare into her eye. Light emanated from some unseen source just enough for him to see her pale face and the shimmering dress that she wore made of feather and shadow.

"You set out to devour eternity and become everything and you lost control in the end. You were bested in combat by three heroes. One of them happens to be involved with a servant of mine, a beautiful Elven man. Name him. Name the three." Her voice was hollow and curt.

John smiled, wide and white, though blood streaked his face and one of his eyes was swollen over.

"You astonish me, John. You assume that helping to undo a grave wrong is penance for having done it in the first place. You exist here because within that eternity that you sought to control was me—you died within the bubble of my small planar system while trying to unseat all of Creation and our prize for that was me going through the trouble of having my lovely ravens reassemble your soul just to bring you here for special treatment." She grabbed him by the chin with a black gloved hand shaking his head side to side.

"Name the three and your punishment ends now. I shall return you to the nothingness from which you were reassembled."

John laughed, that forced laugh that he must have reserved for speaking engagements and dinner parties where he was uninterested in the topic of conversation, but needed to play nice.

"You can be free of this. You can finally rest." She pulled him by the chin until he was staring into her purple eyes. The thing about the Raven Queen is she is beautiful and she is terrifying. She looks human, but in an unsettling way that screams 'wrong' and when she speaks to John the next time she's yelling and the screech of a bird echoes from somewhere. "The names!"

"Merle…Taako…Magnus…" John manages to say.

How could she forget Taako from TV? She nods knowingly and the stories of their travels flood back over her. If they could stop John on his petty quest, then they'd surely investigate this other plane and its syphoning control of undead. And of course, they could keep her name out of it.

"Thank you for your cooperation."

The last thing that John saw was the Raven Queen throw her head back as if to laugh, the feathery dress that crossed her chest just above the breast line seemed to lurch up her chest and shoulder blades and her neck. The plumage of the features spread like the top of a palm tree and her face blackened and stretched to form a beak and for her eyes to pull back into large dark orbs. A human-sized raven stood before him and let out a cry before crushed his head with a crack.

He felt the snap of bones he shouldn't have had anymore and then John felt nothing at all.

John ceased to exist.

* * *

We're a raven sailing over the expansive forest of the Nentir Vale on an eastbound wind through a near cloudless sky. The trees below are thick, green and rolling. They stretch up so far that we're having to push up higher than normal, catch updrafts of warm air and soar up off of them, flapping furiously to keep momentum and altitude.

Further east are the Whitefall mountains, barely visible on the horizon even from our height. At our back is the Sword Coast, the jewel of the continent and housing the most expansive populations of peoples in the material plane.

We push further east over clearings and small stone ruins left by long dead civilizations, the start of bridges arcing over the forest too big to have been constructed for humans—remnants from the Age of Giants an unfathomable amount of time before the here and now.

A river pokes out through a clearing beneath us and we bank and curve to follow it as it snakes through a more sparse part of the wilderness and finally opens up into a wide inland lake that we might have feared to be the eastern coast if not for the mountains still looming in the distance. And we fly over the expanse of rippling water with the sun silvering its surface and being broken here and there by waves. We fly for hours, though time isn't measured in minutes or hours to a bird, we know it to be a long time.

We're forced to beat our wings against the moist air to keep our height and when the forest finally comes into view, we glide lower to rest and sit along the banks of the massive lake. There's a _woosh_ and then a sharp pain followed by pressure and we're tumbling end over end. The sound of the air around us as we dive out of control spiraling toward the ground.

The dirt shore sprinkled with driftwood is coming too fast and the attempts to move our wings result in pain. And then everything goes black.

* * *

A tall woman with red hair and hooked ram-like horns at either side of her head stands on the shore in a white dress adorned with gold trim and jangly golden jewelry. Her thick, knee-high boots are digging into mud as she braces against the force of the spell that she's casting: a sheet of wind that sweeps from an unseen force over the water pushing the spiraling body of a bird back toward the land. The creature whirls like a top, an arrow jutting out of its middle as it bounces on the wind.

She halts her prayer as the bird reaches the land, but its still high up and falling fast with the arrow making its direction unpredictable and by the time that it is predictable it's too late. It's headed right for her face. She throws her hands up and lets out a scream.

And the bird never makes contact. Instead it floats a few feet from her held up by a spectral hand. A wavering, enthusiastic voice sounds behind her. "She's already more Cleric than we got out of you." Taako was approaching her from behind with his wand raised as he held his cast of Mage Hand, though it looked like he was expending very little effort on doing so. "She healed a villager days ago and I haven't seen her cast Zone of Truth once. Wait, my man, you said you're teaching her?"

"Yeah, I'm guiding her. Setting an example," Merle said, his face as red as a baked ham though whether it was from the strain of his pack or the heat wasn't clear.

Taako plucked the dead bird out of the air by the arrow. "Annemarie, baby, you've got to jump ship on Merle's _Jules walking the Earth_ bullshit and come on down to my Arcana academy."

This wasn't the first time that Taako had made this offer to Annemarie and she smiled with her mace held nervously down at her side. "No thank you, I'm fine where I am." Merle had given her a chance when most sects of Pelor were at least somewhat suspect of her. A Tiefling was still thought to be in league with the infernal planes. Merle didn't see her that way though, he had lived with jellyfish or talking wolves and even made friends with the Lord of Ruination, John.

Merle didn't discriminate.

"Sorry about that one!" Magnus Burnsides bounds over a thick hollow long carrying at set of squirrels and rabbits and birds strung up together. Dinner. "It was further out than I thought."

"I think it's fine, big guy," Taako says. "But, um, how much do you think we eat? You've got a feast slung over your shoulder—you know I've got, like, spells for that and stuff."

"We won't always be able to count on magic, we've got to prepare for the worst—if we're going to make sure that people are ready to survive when…well when shit gets bad." Magnus's hair was white and poked up in short spikes on his head, except his sideburns, they were dark and faded back to white as they extended down into his stubble.

Merle and Taako looked the same after twenty years. Merle with his faded rust colored beard and sun-roughened leathery skin. Taako still blonde and lithe with skin the color of driven snow—Taako would look the same when he lived ten more of Magnus's lifetimes, as was the nature of the children of Corellon.

Magnus was pushing fifty now, his skin reddened and aged in the sun. He was still massive and fit and though he could feel himself slowing down some he'd always been so ahead of the average that it didn't seem to stop him from still doing what he did best. Helping others.

"We need to make camp soon," Merle mused.

"Yeah, especially if you expect me to cook all of this," Taako said.

"We don't expect anything too fancy," Magnus said.

Taako scoffed. "I don't know, I've got a reputation to maintain. I don't want the kid going back and blabbing to the world that I'm some kind of phony."

"Oh," Annemarie said, actually startled. "Me?"

"Rail-splitter a few trees down," Taako said ignoring the question. "I'm going to try and magic us up a proper kitchen so we can see what we can do with all this."


	2. Chapter 2

From her position, laying on her side Annemarie was looking up at Magnus, Merle, and Taako sitting in a sort of semi-circle in front of her. They spoke in tones barely above the crackling of their camp fire about their trip on the Rockport Limited and how a train almost became a permanent fixture in the streets of Neverwinter.

She was born in the calm since the Day of Song and Story. The older folk forgot that this wisdom that had been imparted to them so matter-of-a-factly wasn't with everyone. It was special bond shared by all generations before hers, but it was something she was left out of. In return, she got something different.

The trio spoke of a great battle in the narrow halls of a train, Magnus wishing that it could have spilled onto the train top just for the experience of saying he'd fought atop a moving train. Merle chimed in about how they had met Angus McDonald—he was a handsome wizard that Annemarie had met from time to time and whom Merle had nothing but praise for. Taako remembered how he had stolen some loot from right under the noses of the rest of the group and Magnus looked angry for a moment, but then the three of them were laughing.

And then the crackling of the fire was the only sound. It was dark outside of the small circle of red-orange light cast by the glow of the fire. She reached her hand out toward the flame watching the silhouette of palm and fingers against the backdrop of fire.

Taako had been wrong about the food, of course. They had devoured the entirety of the meal without a problem. It had been a long time since Merle and Magnus had regularly gotten to eat anything Taako prepared, so they seemed to take full advantage of this.

"Jenkins was a bit of a twat, but you put a few drinks in him and he gets better," Taako said when the quiet had become uncomfortable.

"When was what now?" Magnus asks leaning over bracing his huge hands against the ground.

"Oh, it was a thing I did with Kravitz—we got tore up with Jenkins and Magic Bryan in the Ethereal Plane. They're alright guys when you get past all of the _thrall of powerful items_ BS."

Merle rubbed his rough wooden hand against his forehead. "So many questions."

Magnus shushed them and pushed off to his feet, his bones popping as he steadied himself against his huge axe. He brought it up over his shoulder, choking his grip up on the long, worn handle.

Taako was just still, he could hear it too. He comes to his full height muttering an incantation until the outline between him and the objects around him is almost indistinguishable. It looks like he's part of a picture that's just out of focus, but it only affects him.

With his arm outstretched, Merle throws open his battered copy of the _Extreme Teen Bible_ and surveys the tree line. "Remember what I taught you, kid." He glances back at Annemarie and the sound is more apparent now. The beating of thousands of wings somewhere through the forest, the screech of birds all around them.

Then the wind rushes through their camp and the first is blown out, everything is cast into darkness.

"You fucked with the wrong crew, bucko. This isn't a fight you want to get into."

Taako, Merle, and Annemarie could still see, but Magnus was practically blind in the dark. Annemarie touched the head of her Morningstar as she muttered a prayer to Pelor. When she held it high brilliant light erupted in a dome around them.

The birds they heard were a little further out, but the edge of the light circle illuminated them now. Their dark bodies flitting along between the trees and passing through any place they could find a gap. Suddenly Magnus was sorry that he'd eaten those birds.

Purple flame popped to life in the fire pit behind them and Annemarie's light spell was snuffed out. The scene around them was bathed in the light from the large fire that mysteriously didn't seem to be giving off any heat.

And the temperature was dropping.

The sky clouded over and a torrential rain overtook them. Taako threw up a quick cast of force wall above their heads in the pointed shape of a roof. Rain poured off of the invisible structure on either side of them.

"What was all th—" Magnus only got part of the word out before there was an explosive clap of thunder and something impossibly hot arced through all of them, wrapping around through the group. Explosive pain overtook them and they collapsed into the freshly wet dirt as the rain stopped just as rapidly as it had started. The sound of birds was gone and the dying embers of yellow first flickered in the pit between their four bodies.

* * *

For a moment Merle panics. Everything is inky blackness around him and the color is drained from his arms and clothes. He can see his companions all in monochrome and looking as confused as he is. He wonders if this is the Hunger, could it have found some way to get back? Had there been another John who talked a whole world into the same hunt for eternity?

This was different than the Hunger had ever been. They were certainly inside of _this_ , but they weren't mindless or dead. He worried that they had been mindless for twenty years—they had lost and this is what happens to you. You dream of a better world while the Hunger uses your form to rampage across the cosmos.

"I realize that this may be improper, but bringing you to death's doorstep was the only way I could be sure our conversation remained…between us." The voice came from everywhere at first and the blackness around them pulsed and moved. As if she had been there all along a woman in a dress of purple trim adorned with dark, shimmering feathers stood in front of them. Her skin was white to the point that it seemed to be emitting light and two massive ravens were perched on her shoulders. She fed the creatures out of her gloved hands, rubbing the sides of their faces and necks lovingly.

Magnus was without weapons, but he had never needed weapons to take care of a problem, he pulled his burly fists up in front of him to stand at guard. "You said that you had to put us at death's door to speak to us? Just who the fuck do you think you are you Necromatic fuck?"

"I'm Death. I was being literal, I had to bring you to my door to talk to you. See, this is why I don't like 'figures of speech', 'turns of phrase' or 'colloquialisms'. They just invite chaos. And not the interesting kind of chaos—more like the _Three's Company_ goofy mix-up type," said the woman who claimed to be Death.

Magnus dropped his hands to his side. "I'm not sure I follow…"

Annemarie dropped to the ground in a solemn bow. "Are you the Raven Queen?"

"Circle gets the square. I gathered the three of you—you were just a victim of circumstance—" she says this pointing at Annemarie, "—to look into something for me."

"You're the Goddess of Death, why not look into it yourself?" Taako asks.

"Expect to be off the list for any future company Candle Night's parties…" the Raven Queen said. "I could easily tear through the Material Plane looking for whatever is the cause of this. I could send Kravtiz or Barry or Lup to look for it—but those things would be noticed by other gods as out of the ordinary and they would be noticed by whoever I'm looking for."

Merle sighed. "What could be that important to keep secret?" He glanced around to see that Annemarie was gone and the panic welled up in him again.

"Someone is manipulating mindless undead from off plane. They do so without the necromancers who actually make the abominations knowing what's up. What's more is that the plane that they're doing this from doesn't seem to be one that I can see or have heard of. Whether they plan to wrestle control away or use them to some other ends I don't know. But it looks irresponsible of me if someone uses death to mount some form of heresy on this large a scale."

"Where did Annemarie go?" asked Merle.

"I told you, I didn't mean to get her. She probably just regained consciousness. She'll be trying to revive your bodies. I need a decision."

Magnus put a meaty hand to his white beard. "Can we ask you a favor?"

"Look, I can't restore Julia to life. I can't even take you to see her because that isn't supposed to be how death works and it won't ease your heart to see her. Trust me," the Raven Queen said.

"I want to see my wife."

"You'll live to be an old man and die in his sleep surrounded by those you love," the Raven Queen's eyes were glowing purple now and she seemed to look through them, "as you slowly drift off holding her wedding ring you wake up near a cabin where you see your dogs and when the door opens there she is…you'll see her again someday. As long as you help me, that is."

Taako steps in. "How about this: you give this fool his arm back," he points to Merle, "bump me from a seven point five, back up to a ten," he says pointing to his face, "and then you tell us where to find Governor Kalen." Then Taako added: "We want to handle that last one first."

"Who…" Magnus starts, but is abruptly cut off by Merle and Taako.

"Don't worry about it," they say in unison.

The Raven Queen reclines back in mid-air, resting her back against the blackness. "Yes, those things I can do."

"An-and it's not going to be like a haunted arm from a serial killer or something, is it?" asked Merle.

"You'll grow a brand new fucking arm, not a baby arm or some haunted arm because I'm not a hack."

Magnus looks between Taako and Merle suspiciously and then looks back at the Raven Queen. "Can you deliver a message for me and maybe a gift?"

"A message, it depends. I'm not your own person courier."

"Can you tell her I'm always thinking of her," Magnus said.

The Raven shook her head and stood back to her full height. "She already knows that and you know the dead spend a lot of time thinking about the living."

"Can you deliver a message to Jenkins and Magic Brian that we've got a nine AM tee-time," Taako said. "I don't want to be standing around waiting again…"

"What? No and you realize Magic Brian isn't a description of a person that's going to help me find him right? Like how many Brians that also know magic do you think I have in the Astral Plane?" she asked.

"Five? He should be pretty easy to find since I sent him there. How many magic people named Brian do you think I've killed?" Taako shot back with a smile.

The Raven Queen's eyes glowed brilliant purple again. "You've been killed nineteen times, if you want to make your twentieth and final death come a little early, keep talking!"

"Hey, excuse me Miss Queen, do you deliver other things? Like can I send my cousin, Gundren, a cookie basket—or wait a fruit bouquet? Doctor says he has to watch his blood pressure." Merle scratched as his beard as he thought his way through the question.

The Raven Queen turned to walk away. "You have your orders," she said, her voice booming. "I don't know how Pan and Istus put up with this…" she muttered under her breath as she walked away.

* * *

A dark skinned human with a bandoleer of daggers secured to his chest knelt over Magnus. His dreadlocks were pulled back into a tight ponytail that was slung over the shoulder of the silvery Elven-make chainmail he wore. "This one's coming to," he said to someone outside of Magnus's eye line.

Annemarie rushed over and shoved her way in next to the mysterious man as Magnus blinked, still groggy. "Thank the Sun Father! I burned through every spell I had healing you three and it wasn't enough, I thought…" She rubbed the back of her hand across her cheeks streaking through the lines of tears.

Merle's voice was low and gruff. "How long were we out for?"

"I woke up two hours ago on the ground. Daunte must have heard me screaming because he came to help after that," Annemarie said.

Daunte nodded as Magnus sat up. "I was traveling along the shore out that way when I heard crying and cursing. I just came to investigate…"

"There wasn't that much crying…and I wasn't really cursing. Those things were said in panic," Annemarie said.

"Ma'am, I've been in pirate ports where that kind of talk would have turned heads…" Daunte said.

Magnus, Merle, and Taako were up now standing near the dead fire at the center of their camp. Annemarie had jammed her Morningstar into the ground and cast light atop it and that seemed to be the only source of light for miles. She stayed seated on the ground as they looked at her, her arms crossed and her face pinched tight in anger. Then the realization of what had happened washed over her.

"That was who I think it was back there, right?" Annemaire asked. The three of them nodded.

Daunte glanced at all of them in turn. "That was who back where? What did she want?"

Merle stared up at him, eyes glowing with the magical light illuminating the scene around them. "We're on a secret mission from god."

Taako and Magnus slap their faces, but Magnus is the first to speak up. "How secret can it be if you told Mysterious Stranger number one about it minutes after meeting him?"

"We're boned. The Raven Queen is going to kill us…" Taako says.


	3. Chapter 3

Grabnar was big the way that legends made other men seem. He towered over most humans and other folk to the point that it seemed he might have been at least part Goliath. But he was too handsome faced for that with a square jaw and dimpled chin. His clothes were little more than furs even in the cold airs of village of Tolos.

He couldn't read, but he could take instructions and that was what he did as he helped people with smaller daily tasks in exchange for food and some warm hay in the nearby stables to sleep in. Where he'd been born there wasn't a proper indoors the way that they had down south. Up at the crown of the world you lived in the elements and slept on the ground. He'd become too accustomed to that way of life to let it go now.

There wasn't any plan to what he did. Travel the world, see what he could see, and sometimes help out when he could. He enjoyed a good fight and he found that often if you just did the other parts a good fight came looking for you and it was unavoidable. You'd know it when you saw it.

He'd been in town almost a week, usually that was enough time to get the feel of a place. You wanted the locals to trust and take a liking to you, but not to take you for granted or resent you. Grabnar choose the places that he hung out with carefully enough, stayed out of the way of common people as much as he could, and always wore a smile.

The morning sun was barely cutting through the tree line as he started his morning routine. He washed under the pumped water near the stables, first rubbing himself down with clean water, then covering that water with sand and dirt to scrub, and then rinsing off. He ran water through his thick, dark mane smoothing it down against his neck. When that was done he took a small sack filled with thick, white paste and rubbed it between his hands. Once he was satisfied that his hands had warmed it, he started by rubbing it on his legs up as far as was decent. Then on his chest and stomach. Then his arms, neck, shoulders and face. His salve was a necessity—that's where, Grabnar believed, he derived his strength.

Grabnar was trying to reach his shoulder blades when a voice cut through to him. "Hey, Lurch." He turned to see a young blonde woman with the tips of her ears pointed just enough to know she was descended from the forest folk—what did they call themselves? Elves. Though he guessed this one had human in her. Her hips and her whole frame was wider than any Elf he'd ever seen. "You're the one doing the odd jobs around here?"

"Yes, I'm…" He froze and a smile spread across his face. "…Grabnaaaar, the Barbarian Hero!" he sang in a booming baritone voice before doing a backflip that seemed impossibly agile for a man his size. His landing put small divots in the ground.

The woman's head was pulled slightly to one side in disgust. "Well, it's officially too early to see someone's junk as he flips through the air, but there you have it…" The woman sighs and shakes her head. "My name is Lissette and I've got a bit of an embarrassing situation. If you could help me out I'll buy you some mud to roll around in or a nice whore. Whichever you want to roll around in…"

"Food, strong drink, and a place to sleep is enough for me," he replied. "What's the problem?"

"Well, you're huge and built like a brick shithouse, this guy gipped me on a trade. This item literally makes you retarded or something so that the person offering it can take your most valuable item," she said holding up a small stone with an etching on one side.

"I don't think we're supposed to use that word anymore…"

"You know what I mean, anyway this guy took something from me."

Grabnar examines the item from a far, almost sure that he can smell a hint of some exotic spice. "What's it called?"

"The Slicer of T'pire Wire Isles? I think that's how he said it. I don't know, he's got a goddamn cat's head and he's screaming all the time…are you going to help me or not?"

"Grabnar can't resist the call to adventure. Especially when there's a damsel in distress!" he pats her on top of with a palm so big it almost covers the top of her entire skull and proceeds to walk past her.

"Why are your palms all greasy? Are you rubbing bacon fat on yourself?" Lissette asks as she chases after him.

* * *

A boxy, retrofitted battlewagon with various trinkets and weapons dangling all around it rolls down the cobblestone street that runs the length of Tolos. The huge vehicle still sports the dents in the armor, though now it's painted orange and the words 'FANTASY FOOD TRUCK' painted on the side in blue.

The human-sized head of orange and black tabby cat is sticking out the window of the cockpit surveying the pedestrians on the side of the road and when it serves him, yelling to them. "Little boy! Little boy? Would you like to peruse my wares?"

"Maybe it's not a good idea to invite kids into your wagon covered in weapons, you freak!" a man yelled from the side walk.

"Freak? No, it is I, Garfield the Deals Warlock!" Garfield waves his wand in a flourish in the man's direction. "With one spell I've banished all sinister thoughts from your mind about pedophiles and strangers in battlewagons. Get your mind out of the gutter!"

A woman threw open the shutters of a window. "Your ridiculous hollerin' woke my baby!"

"Then maybe I could interest you in some Sandman Dream Powder—this stuff isn't even technically approved for sale here! It's made in Shou Lung by blind monks!" Garfield held up a small satchel of white sand like material.

Lissette and Grabnar stopped at the corner and she pointed to the wagon rolling slowly down the street. "I'm sure you can tell which guy I'm talking about…" she said. They strike out to go after the vehicle, Grabnar running to catch hold of the side of it.

"I might be interested in some of what you've got here. Is that a jar of bees you're selling?" Grabnar said.

"My giant friend here has a keen eye. Why yes, those are bees," Garfield said as the battlewagon slid to a stop.

Grabnar placed his hand on his chin as if he is deep in thought for a moment and then folds his arms over his chest. "I'd take it, but I don't really have any money—no pockets. You'll have to speak to my associate here for payment," he said as he points over his shoulder toward Lissette.

"Oh, you again? All sales are final, sorry."

Lissette slams her fist against the side of the battlewagon. "Sale my ass, you tricked me with this weird rock."

"A trade is a trade, you're welcome to purchase your bow back at a reasonable price though," Garfield said.

"A bow? Grabnar can make you a bow…" Grabnar said.

Lissette scoffs. "Not like this." She glared at the Deals Warlock, her blue eyes narrowing. "Give me my bow," she said through clenched teeth.

Grabnar has traversed the land from coast to coast and walked in places where they said men didn't walk. He'd survived an avalanche where it felt like the snow and rock itself was out to bury him—end his existence. And he'd stood against a rush of stampeding animals, bravely keeping them at bay from companions. This low rumble felt like the tremor that proceeded both of those things.

He knelt and put his palm flat on the cobblestone. Bits of sand and rock danced with the pounding of whatever was coming. When the ground began to pulse like a heartbeat of something massive and living the warlock and Lissette seemed to feel it too.

"Hmm, what is that?" Garfield opened the door to the battlewagon and stepped out, pulling the cone shaped hat back out of his eyes.

Grabnar rose back to his towering height and removed the two axes that he wore, axes big enough that they should have taken two hands for a regular man to hold. In the distance there was dust and the rumble was full blown now. Towns people screamed and ran and there were shrieks of terror further out. Horrible cracking noises and fierce snarls were coming from somewhere too close.

Dust filled the street in one direction, but they couldn't see what was coming. And then the door to a tavern off to their side exploded out as a man was tackled to the ground by a nearly nude man with pale, ragged skin. The man on bottom was held down as the other one bit into his neck ripping chunks of flesh free and throwing his head back to swallow.

There was no time to pay attention to the screams or the panic around them as more of the gaunt creatures burst through the door of the tavern. Zombies. Grabnar kicked the first one that nearly reached them back and wildly hacked at them with axes, burying them under the sheer weight of his swings. He let out a bellowing cry: "Graaabnaaaaar, the Barbarian Heeero!" and continued his assault.

"My bow, give me my bow!" Lissette continued. A zombie thundered past Grabnar, slamming itself into the side of the battlewagon and then making for Lissette, she turned, drew a short sword from the side of her belt and jabbed it in the chest. She then used her foot to kick it free of the blade. "It'd help if I had my bow."

Garfield blasted a wide ray of arcane energy into a pack of the undead charging up the street. "It's by the door along with some arrows, just grab it!"

Lissette lunged through the open door of the battlewagon to grab the bow and quiver. Her bow was metal and ornate with gears to increase the draw strength and some arrows already fixed to the side for safe keeping. A small cross-haired scope was lined up just above where the arrows sat. More arrows were stockpiled in a bucket just inside the wagon, so she took that too. She dropped the bucket to the ground and drew an arrow. She muttered the Elven word for fire and a red aura took shape around her bow.

She loosed two arrows in rapid succession at a pair of zombies that were raking at a woman's dress as she crawled away. When the arrows hit the creatures were engulfed in flames. She pumped arrows into anything that came through the door and when she couldn't Grabnar picked up her slack. One of the zombies grabbed onto Grabnar, but the salve he had rubbed himself with earlier made getting a grip tricky and he easily shrugged it off.

Garfield slung spells into packs of the undead, blowing them up until chunks rained down in the streets. Even with all their work, the three of them weren't making a dent in this undead horde. And through the dust kicked up during the fight they finally spotted the source of most of the noise: a large tusked creatures, bigger than an elephants. The one in the lead was missing a huge flap of skin on its face and there was a skeletal rider.

"Get on the wagon!" Garfield yelled. "Get on the wagon!"

A battlewagon had footholds and compartments that were meant to be used for defenders. They were still here. Lissette climbed into a small fenced in cylindrical spot at the back with the bucket of arrows by her side and Grabnar just latched on to the side.

When Garfield saw that they were safe he punched it full throttle through the streets of the city. Grabnar and Lissette kept any undead that got too close to the vehicle off and Garfield drove. He drove in a manner that would put the racers of Goldcliff to shame. He ran over anyone that wasn't living and decided to get in front of them, he skidded through the small town making his way for what had to be safety.

Grabnar snatched the bottle of bees off its hook and flung it back into a crowd of zombies that glared up at them as they passed. It seemed to have no effect.

They were turning west and one of the stampeding beasts was right along side them, towering twice as high as the battlewagon. Garfield glanced over at it, before steering slightly away from it. "Nyahh, do you see that huge sack on the side of the card there, big guy? Those are grenades. When I say so throw the whole damn bag at that thing and hang on!"

"Now!" Garfield veered for the creature sharply and then away. Grabnar threw the bag of grenades right at the apex of the turn and Garfield fired a massive fireball from the tip of a disposable wand into the creature's side. The explosion popped the battlewagon up onto two wheels for a split second, but they seemed to be in the clear.

They were clear of the borders of Tolos, but the city was burning in the distance. People were dragged down by the army of undead. Grabnar hooked his arm around through a handhold near the roof of the battlewagon and rested his head on his arm glancing back into the city as the shouts of victims died under the arcane hum of the battlewagon's engine. His dark hair blew back over his face, but he didn't care enough to push it away. "What was that?" he asked.

"An army of the undead…" Lissette said.

Garfield checked the mirror for any pursuers and then looked back at the pair of them.

"Is this like the last time?" Grabnar asked. "The unseen ones and their invasion?"

"I was only two when that happened…I have memories of the seven travelers though. It's just always been there," Lissette said. With a whisper she deactivated the enchantment on her bow and checked the tightness of the riggings.

"This is something different," Garfield's voice was lower than normal now. "This is something else." He had seen what happened back then, he'd been involved in some of it, albeit unknowingly. This was something different, but still dangerous. "We should stick together for now."


	4. Chapter 4

Night is uneasy with the threat of the Raven Queen's words looming over their sleep. Something threatens her and is using the undead. It had been a long time since Magnus had to think about the undead. Wonderland. A year cycle where they lived on a world with intelligent undead that lived side by side with humans. These were two very different interactions left a lot of room in the middle for "what-ifs".

Magnus polished his axe as Annemarie and Merle went over their morning prayers. It had been a common occurrence to see Merle in his commune with nature over the years they'd known each other. He'd kneel among the trees and fallen leaves and drink nature in. The words that he spoke with Pan were as familiar to Magnus now as they must have been to Merle. The veneration of Pan was a short prayer and Merle spoke it in his native Dwarven, but the sounds and inflections soothed Magnus in a way.

Annemarie was a different sort, Pelor was a more prominent and her rituals had less to do with the environment around her and more to do with Pelor. She would go through a silent prayer or reflection and then say. "For this we pray to you, Lord of Light and Mornings," her tone was unwavering and she faced the direction of the rising sun throughout the process.

With the weight of the head of the axe resting in his palm, Magnus tested the edge for dents and sharpness. This axe had been with him too long and it seemed it had a little more work to do. Back with the Raven Queen Taako and Merle has mentioned something that they seemed to want to keep secret or couldn't tell him. He remembered the moment, but not the name or any circumstances surrounding what that name could mean. He hadn't had time to ask them as they had been busy since then with sleep or meditation or cooking or prayer…

Daunte, the man who had happened upon them the previous day had stuck around. He sauntered up to Magnus. Magnus's head was down, the white spiked hair atop his head still wet with lake water from his morning wash. "You're him, ain't you?"

"I'm…not sure what you're talking about," Magnus blew across the axe edge just as he finished his sentence.

"Magnus Burnside—big damn hero! I can't believe that I'd just run into you out here," Daunte said.

"Well, I gotta be somewhere," Magnus said.

"Right, right. I mean, you were just an inspiration for me. My moms and pops saw you once in person and there was a statue of you in our town. You dressed different and yeah you were younger, but you're a legend."

"Your town, Refuge?" asked Magnus.

"Yeah, you set us free from…well free from never moving forward."

"It was me and other like me who damned your town to be frozen too," Magnus said.

Daunte sighed. "That's one way to look at it. The other is that the Temporal Chalice saved us from a big fucking Purple Worm. And then you three used it to save us from the Ruination From the Heavens. If it weren't for you I wouldn't be here. Neither would she, for sure," he says as he points to Annemarie who was lifting her morningstar up above her head and muttering a prayer. "You're why I decided to see the world and lend a hand—Hell that's why I stuck around, it seems like you could use an extra sword."

Magnus cracked a smile and glanced over at Annemarie. "That's why you stuck around?"

Daunte furrowed his brow in confusion. "Huh?"

"Nothing, I just have a lot on my mind," said Magnus.

"Well, I know what takes my mind off of everything when I get like that." Daunte pulled a sword from his hip and touched the flat of the blade to his forehead in a kind of salute. "Come on, let me live out a life-long fantasy of mine. Show me what you've got, Old Man."

"That's how it is?" Magnus asked.

"I don't know. Get up. Prove me wrong."

Magnus got to his feet and the two went at each other with slow swings with the bite pulled out of them, but axe and sword clang together with a resounding ring and as they continued to spar, Magnus laughed. One of the blows caught Magnus off guard and he stumbled back and went down on one knee. Daunte brought the sword up to point it down at Magnus's face. "Yield?" he asked. "I've got you."

In a flash Magnus slaps the sword down with the flat of his axe, knocking it free of Daunte's grip. As the sword drops, Magnus rushes in and lifts Daunte onto his back. He can't hold the weight for long, but he doesn't need to. He flips the younger man onto the ground near the axe and sword.

Daunte lays with his dreads spread out around his head like a lion's mane. "You had me, huh?" Magnus asked as he stooped down to offer a hand to him.

"Guess that's the reason they call you a legend?" Daunte says.

Annemarie stepped in and took Daunte by the arm. "There's nothing sore? No ringing in the ears, right?"

"My pride. My pride is a little sore," Daunte said.

"Nah, you did good kid." Magnus slapped a huge hand down on his shoulder.

"You could have hurt each other. These aren't practice weapons! And I just saw you get hit by lighting twelve hours ago!" she slaps the shoulder pad of Magnus's armor.

Taako had finished packing up the remains of breakfast and had wandered off saying that he'd be right back. He came through the underbrush and surveyed the camp. "Um, there's something that I think we need to all see when Merle is done…"

* * *

The clearing surrounded some ancient stone monument, probably Druidic, and the grass was ankle high here and blew back and forth in thin strands. Strewn throughout the grass along with the stones of the monument were bodies. There were too many to count and only a few days old.

Magnus and Daunte were the first into the field. "No traps," Daunte said. "Just…the dead."

The others followed them out into the tall grass, Annemarie clutched a handkerchief wet with canteen water to her face. She shivered as they stepped onto the grounds around the monuments. "Merle?" she said with a worried look in her large blue eyes.

"I get ya' kiddo. I feel it too," Merle said keeping his voice low.

"Feel what?" asked Magnus.

"The heebie-jeebies," Merle said.

Annemarie moved the cloth down some and the smell of sunbaked death flooded over her. "Desecration. Someone used this sacrifice to turn a holy site decidedly unholy."

"Necromancy. Fun times," Taako said.

"It's worse than that for me. I can smell the Infernal venting up through this place. We have to do something," she said shaking her head.

Merle sighs. "It'd take us weeks to cleanse this place alone. You can damn near taste the evil."

"Oh, look over there," Taako said pointing at a lone armored man dragging a sword through the grass toward him. He was taking slow, hobbling steps and didn't say a word. "You're all alone. Drop the weapon." The figure kept coming. "If you want to roll the dice, thug. I'm all game."

The figure glared up and under his helm they could see two glowing yellow eye sockets and a skull with most of the meat torn away from. Without a second thought Taako loosed an arcing bolt of electricity from the tip of his wand and blew a chunk out of the creature's side. It took a few more labored steps and toppled into the grass.

"We need to leave," Annemarie's voice wavered.

"We've got movement on all sides now," Daunte said.

The movement he spoke of was the former dead. They were pushing themselves up to their feet with mournful howls and rasping gasps. Their skin was mostly shredded down to the point that it is sliding away from the bone. A few of them reached out to grab at the person nearest to them. Magnus was the first to catch one stumbling too close. He swung his in downward sweep and caught the would-be-attack in the ankles with Railsplitter. The thing's legs clattered across the grass and it flopped onto its side. Magnus finished it off with a blow to the neck, severing its head.

There were too many of them for Taako to start burning spells on, so he sends streams of raw arcane energy ripping through the creatures. He tears into the nearest group and then turns his hand on the ones at his back. Magnus and Daunte step in defending the sides of the group from the stragglers.

Merle summons a huge mace made of spiritual energy that lays into the undead knocking them back and burning them with brilliant holy energy. Annemarie backs into the center of the group. "Let them close in," she said before she beings to mutter a prayer.

"What?" Magnus yelled.

She paused. "Let them come," she said.

All around her the sounds of battle intensify. Some of the dead are felled by sword or axe while others fall to spells. Magnus, Merle, Taako, and Daunte moved away from her, being sure to keep anything from getting too close. Annemarie raised her Morningstar and it began to glow subtly becoming brighter as she prayed.

"Shine forth thy light  
"Drive back the darkness

"Bring life where there was death  
"Bring growth where all was barren  
"Bring peace where there was strife  
"Bring warmth where clawed the fingers of ice  
"Bring mercy where there was none  
"Bring knowledge where there was ignorance  
"Bring comfort where there was fear

"Let the sun rise!  
"Let the shadows flee!"

On the word flee a cascade of light flooded down from the heavens and surrounded the group, slamming into the ground and spreading out in a white-yellow wave that disintegrated the nearest wave of attackers and ripped through the rest of the undead knocking them to the ground. The bodies that were left lay smoking.

Magnus stepped out to check on the upper half of one undead that lay with arms thrown up as if in panic. Its eyes were burned out of its head. He turned back to the group. "Damn, don't tell me Merle taught you that too."

"I taught her everything, dammit!" Merle yelled.

Annemarie had sunken to her knees and was huffing in air, her face red from stress. "The Lord of Light is good," she managed. "I just—I need to rest."

Taako was rubbing his eyes blinking and looking around. "A little warning next time would be nice. These eyes have to last me a few more centuries." He walked up to her, still seeing spots and glanced down in her direction. "She's sleep."

"Well, can we really afford to stop for the day? We've got to find this Kalen fellow so we can get on with it," Merle said.

Magnus heard that name again. He knew it from somewhere, though he couldn't even recall the exact name now…"

Taako sighs. "I know. I think I have an idea."

* * *

 _Annemarie._

The dirt and cobblestone streets of Field Ward were beginning to puddle with the water that ran down from the tops of buildings. The rainy season in Waterdeep was notorious, but Field Ward never died down. All manner of demi-humans sold their wares and doing business on the streets—this was the part of town where those with impure blood made their home. The deeper one went into the city walls the more likely one was to get caught.

And being outside the main wall didn't keep citizens from visiting Annemarie.

She was back in front of that alleyway with the row of hovels, one of which she lived in. The others were busy trying to keep themselves dry, but dry didn't earn and copper. Dry didn't feed. And that was the most important thing about all of this. Annemarie could have worked waiting tables or mopping a floor somewhere, but for a half-Fiend like her—more importantly, for a half-Succubus—this business gave her easy access to the one ritual that kept a Succubus in good health. Sexual intercourse. Without the ritual of sex she was basically operating at half energy.

Annemarie had given up on any other kind of way to get sex. She'd even given up on normal relationships. Her father and his family thought she was a monster. To most of society she was suspect.

 _Annemarie._

Was there someone calling her?

Cold wind swept past her carrying darts of rain with it. She remembered this place. She remembered rain like this, but it all felt wrong. The sky seemed to be reddening and when she looked at the rain, really looked at it, it was red too.

Everything smelled metallic. It was raining blood. Had it always been raining blood.

 _Annemarie, you don't belong with them. You belong here…_

The voice was clearer now, a gruff voice that seemed to echo from somewhere distant while being so immediate and that it drowned out all other noise. "Who's there?"

 _Someone long forgotten. Someone who could use your help._

"Let me out of here. Is this some kind of dream?" Annemarie asked confused.

 _I saw what you did to my soldiers. You're so weak now. You're so tired. I could reconnect you with true power. All you have to do is say the word._

Annemarie covered her ears and begin to pray. "The Lord of Light guides me through darkness. He walks by me through danger. He shepherds me to his Golden City where he sits on the throne of the sun…" she repeats this prayer again. And again.

 _That fool, Pelor, can't reach you here. You entered my Infernal grounds. You taunt me by calling the power of my enemy into my foothold in the Material world._

She could still hear the voice just as clearly and she was still praying.

 _Are you listening?_

Whips of light arced through midair slicing into her. They ripped at her skin, burning her. They continued to assault her until she fell to her knees in the streets running with bloody rain. She managed to keep praying. When she reached up to her neck she found her holy symbol and clutched it. She paused. "I gave this life up. I'm not meant for that and I will not be intimidated by some voice in my head!"

The voice was gone. Waterdeep and the rains were gone and Annemarie was left alone slumped over and wet in the darkness.

* * *

"One of us should really invest in a good, solid mount," Merle said.

Taako sighed. "Everything you invest in, you lose or leave behind."

Merle glanced over at the pale, blue form of a quasi-real spectral steed that traveled in their midst. Annemarie was straddling the horse, her hands wrapped around its neck tightly and tied together at the wrists. Her face rested in the mullet mane that grew wildly down the back of its head. She was secured up there as best they could do with ropes and all, but Magnus and Daunte walked on either side making sure she stayed put.

The steed, Garyl walked at a leisurely pace. "You ain't gotta tug on her like that," he said with a sharp whinny punctuating his sentence. "When you pull on her, you're pulling on me. Her arms are tied around my neck!"

"Well, I'm sorry, your talking is creeping me out…" whispered Daunte.

"I'll be sure to keep a tight lid on it then, wouldn't want anyone upset at me being here," Garyl said.

"Cut it out you two." Merle paused and glanced back. "She doing okay?" Merle asked.

"Yeah," Magnus said, though he was speaking kind of on auto-pilot, as if someone had input a series of commands that were to be executed if a certain situation arose. Smile at a joke. Nod to acknowledge benign comment. Answer in the affirmative.

He was pouring through his memory for what they had said earlier. They were going to see someone—a name he couldn't remember. He couldn't ask them directly, they would know something was wrong. He was being denied something, but this was different than the Fishers's ichor. He could hear the name as clearly as day, but before he could think on it or really internalize it, the thoughts had slipped away.

There had to be some way to make someone say it. Annemarie and Daunte were the easiest targets. They were the least likely to know what was going on, especially Daunte. Annemarie wasn't going to be any good to anyone for at least the rest of the day…

He needed to know soon. Sooner than tomorrow or when they reached their destination. An opening would present itself, but to bring it up in the middle of silence like this would be odd. Maybe Merle and Taako would move further up in the group and there'd be a chance to say something then. It wasn't that he didn't trust them. They'd been together more than one hundred years and mostly relied on the wits of the person next to them. They had weathered a storm that rocked universes together.

But they weren't above betrayal when they thought they were doing the right thing. They weren't above hiding secrets. Magnus hid the statue of himself in Refuge. Taako stole countless times behind their back, thinking they didn't know. Merle hid a family. Lucretia…well Lucretia had perpetrated a massive coup against the lot of them. She had stolen memories of loved ones and friends in a bid to protect them from themselves and to protect the world from their mistake…

Magnus wouldn't let anyone make a sacrifice like that on his account again. They stopped at a stream and Merle and Taako were wetting their feet in the cool waters. Daunte took his canteen and drizzled water slowly into Annemarie's hair, smoothing it down as he went. "Somehow it still feels hot in the sun," Daunte said as Magnus neared him.

"At least the Northern Sword Coast is predictable. It varies too much out here," Magnus said. Daunte was a Refuge man. If anyone trusted Magnus it was him. "Are you still worried about her temperature."

Daunte shrugged. "Maybe her type run hot?" he said. "She was definitely having a nasty dream back there. She muttered something in her sleep."

"We've all got pasts that haunt us. I'm sure she's no different," Magnus stroked her forehead checking her temperature. This was his chance. "Do you know much about the man we're headed for?"

He glared at Magnus. "Speaking of the past? Yeah. He's the one who killed your wife—Governor Kalan. I've heard the story around...you were looking for him at one point and just stopped. You stopped before I was even born from what I hear. I kind of...listened to any stories about you that were out there. What's with the questions?"

"He killed…Julia?" Magnus said the words and as soon as he did they didn't make sense. Julia had died, but he couldn't think of how. He couldn't see the face of the man who did it. "He…Kalan…" Magnus said it, but he was losing the name already. He kept repeating it. "Kalan. Kalan. Kalan…"

"Man, are you okay?" asked Daunte stepping away from Annemarie.

"I could have warned you that you were fucking up. Now you done did it," Garyl said.

"Shut up," Daunte chided the spectral creature.

Magnus stormed down toward the creek. "Hey," he said between whispers of Kalan's name. "Tell me the truth about this Kalan guy now!"

Taako and Merle glanced back. "What are you even talking about, buddy?" asked Merle.

"What are you two hiding? Don't play stupid with me." Magnus had gone too long without saying it. He already forgot. "It has something to do with Julia. Why aren't you telling me."

"You have to trust us…" Taako started as he rose to his feet standing at the water's edge. Small ripples of water crashed against his ankles as he stared Magnus down.

"I'm done trusting you because you won't tell me what the fuck is going on. What did you two do?"

Merle held his hand up. "We wanted to tell you, but we can't. We physically can't."

"Bullshit," Magnus snarled. He took one lumbering step forward and Daunte turned to stop him, but he froze in place and tumbled back onto his butt sitting there frozen. "What…what is this?"

"It's for your own good," Merle said as he walked toward Magnus with his small bare feet trampling through the grass and dirt. "Hold person won't hurt you, but if you keep struggling you could fall over or even hurt yourself." Merle retrieved the Extreme Teen Bible from his pack.

He turned to an earmarked passage and red quietly. "I don't understand," Magnus said.

Merle smiled. "You've been mad before. You've gotten so mad at us that we've gone a year without talking. You've missed birthdays and get-togethers. We keep trying to tell you and it just doesn't work. It's whatever those Liches did to you. We can't make it right, we've tried. But we're going to make good on our promise."

"What promise?" Magnus asked. "Who did you make a deal with?"

And as he's done countless times before, Merle throws up his hand. "I cast ZONE OF TRUTH!" A ripple of light encases the two of them and stops just short of Daunte, Garyl, and Annemarie.

Taako steps into the field that the spell's hold has too. "When we were looking for the Animus Bell in Wonderland you lost something in a spin of that wheel…"

"That damned wheel took away your memories of what had happened to Julia. Kalan is the man who killed her. He bombed Raven's Roost," Merle said.

"Whatever magic those fabulous bastards in Wonderland did it makes it so that you can't remember even when we tell you. Even when we make you read it over and over," Taako explained.

"No, I'd never forget who did this to her. I'd never forget his face," Magnus yelled torqueing his shoulders against the spell and only managing to tumble onto his side. "You…you have to be lying."

"You know we're not," Taako said.

"You made us promise that we would find Kalan and kill him. No questions asked. And that we'd tell him why. The Raven Queen granted us an opportunity…" Merle said.

"She gave us his location," Taako added.

Magnus rolled over, his face touching blades of grass and though he couldn't move much he could fee his cheek hit the dirt. He could feel the tears streaming out of his eyes. "I wouldn't forget this. I wouldn't…make that bet." It was hard to hold onto what they were telling him.

"You did it to save your friends. You did it to stop the Hunger. You did it because…it's what Julia would have expected of you. You did it without thinking because Magnus rushes in," Merle said.

Magnus fell still on the ground and Daunte watched from his spot near Garyl. He glanced to the side and even the steed was choked up. He felt his eyes swelling with tears too, though he kept them at bay and cleared the emotion from his voice. "It'll be dark soon and we're down two members, why don't we camp here for the night?"

Merle drops Zone of Truth. "Yeah, I'd say this day's been rough enough on all of us," he walked past Magnus and touched his shoulder. "The job's almost done," Merle said.


	5. Chapter 5

The forest was rife with wights, zombies, and all other manner of undead. Lissette could the rotting flesh on the night air as the Battlewagon trudged on through the night. There was some discussion about sleeping in the wagon and stopping, but Garfield didn't need sleep the same way others did. Plus there was some fear that the creatures could swarm them in the night and they'd be stuck.

Grabnar was inside of the cabin of the wagon now, resting. Lissette watched for any forms of attack. How were there so many of them? Hell, why were there so many?

That wasn't a realistic assessment. They seemed to be originating from somewhere. They hadn't seen one in hours and they had thinned as they moved away from Tolos. But this had been a two-day drive with them taking turns resting. Grabnar couldn't be trusted to drive, though, and she was at her wit's end. Her blonde hair was a frazzled mess with leaves caught in it, her clothes streaked with dirt and sweat.

"You can probably pack it in. I think we're through them," Garfield shouted from his spot in the front.

Lissette climbed over the top of the battlewagon and pulled open the heavy metal hatch. She dropped stealthily down into the interior so as not to wake Grabnar. "Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know. I know someone we might need to get in contact with. There's a town up ahead a few hours. We should make it there by dawn and we can make our move from there." He said.

"I don't know what you're planning, but I know I need a shower. There's things I need to shave and I am probably going to find a nice, dark haired noble boy to take somewhere quiet," Lissette said.

"Ugh, tee-em-eye," Garfield said.

"Nah, I could have gone into it more. Like I could have mentioned that I'm so desperate for anything right now I thought about you two. Only I don't even know what the fuck you are and I'm afraid to shake Grabnar's hand for fear he'd pull my arm off, there's no way I'm going near his…" she made a circle over her genitals with her hand "…situation."

Lissette laid back on a pile of stuffed animals that Garfield had on a pile in the back of the battlewagon. "What's with this thing, anyway?" she asked. "It says food truck on the outside, there's stuffed animals in here…"

"I was trying out different marketing ideas!"

"It seems strange and doesn't gel well with the whole 'adventurer store' motif you've got going on here," Lissette said.

"Well, no one asked you, Don Draper!" Garfield yelled.

"I don't know who that is…" There was a snap outside. "Wait, do you hear that?"

Garfield's ears perked up and he straightened his back. "It's probably just the arcane engine?"

Something hit the side of the battlewagon with a huge thunk. "What was that?" asked Lissette as she pulled her bow up against her body. There was a thunderous explosion and the whole world pitched up into the air and then rolled over onto its side. The stuffed animals rained down on top of Lissette.

Grabnar sprung up from the side of the cabin and grabbed for his axe. Lissette forced her way to her feet with her bow in hand and glanced to the front end of the battlewagon. Garfield was crawling his way to the back of the vehicle.

"We need to get the door open," Grabnar said listening through the door. "But someone is out there."

"You think?" Lissette said sarcastically. "What do these boots do?" she pointed to a pair of winged boots laying near her feet.

Garfield thought for a second. "Double run speed…"

"Fuck it," she slips out of her boots and slips into the others. Outside there are audible noises like people shuffling around and shouts. "We might as well grab what we can out of here. This battlewagon isn't going anywhere."

"The door is stuck too," Grabnar said.

She snatched some pendants down and a belt. A gauntlet hung on the wall. "Does this glove make you stronger or something?" Lissette asked.

"I think…"

She slipped her hand inside and said. "You're going to need to move," Lissette said to Grabnar. He stepped back and she charged the door and swung with the gauntlet toward the stuck door. As she brought her fist and the gauntlet forward a spectral fist several sizes bigger than her own appeared around her fist and slammed into the door before she even reached it.

The door was blasted off into the forest and ripped away from the battlewagon. Grabnar was the first one out of the vehicle and he had his axe drawn back and at the ready. Garfield was next and fired a bolt of magic energy high into the air. It hung overhead like a sizzling neon light illuminating the forest and when Lissette stepped out she saw what had attacked.

Warrior women clad in furs and pelts with makeshift weaponry. They were no one type of woman, Humans with dark skin and hair adorned with beads, Orcs that stood at almost the height of the battlewagon, a couple of gnomes with saw tipped spears, a dragonborn with a hastily crafted naginta, two half elf women with skin the color of rust waited on a tree branch with bows poised, and scores of more.

There were no words spoke before Grabnar lunged in to take on one of the women in front with a huge scimitar. His axe collided with her blade ringing throughout the forest. The archers loosed arrows and just as quickly Garfield threw up a wind wall to block them. The other women encircled Grabnar cheering in a language that neither Grabnar or Lissette could understand.

"I think this is where we part ways," Grabnar said. "You've got to contact these people who can help…I'll be fine here. Grabnar is always fine." He kicked his opponent in the stomach sending her tumbling back and the warrior women yelled in excitement. A dark-skinned woman with a bow staff stepped in twirling it expertly and a gnome jumped on Grabnar from behind, its wild pink curls flashing from side to side as Grabnar whipped around and flung the small person onto the ground before deflecting a blow from the bow staff.

Lissette started to move in to help and Garfield grabbed her. Grabnar looked back. "Just go on without me!" He let out a boisterous cry and dove in to tackle the woman with the bow to the ground as more cheers erupted from the group watching them. "Graaaaaabnaaaar, the Barbarian Heroooo!" he screamed until it echoed through the forest.

Lissette grunted. "We'll have to move on foot then?" she asked trying to ignore what they were doing. Garfield nodded. As they headed west she yelled back to Grabnar where he was pinned under the other woman with her thighs around his neck. "If you don't die, make sure they know: the dead are coming!"

Grabnar wriggled one arm free and threw up a thumbs up.

* * *

Annemarie awoke in the middle of the night on the bank of a river with her head laid on a stack of thick blankets. A campfire burned nearby and she could see Taako sitting in his meditative position closer to the bank of the river. A hand smoothed her hair down and she glanced back to see Merle standing behind her, his beard adorned with flowers and so much closer than she usually got to see it.

"Have you been," she yawned, "waiting for me to wake?" her voice was slow and an octave higher than normal.

He nodded. "I don't think I've ever seen you sleep that long from overexertion," he said.

"I don't think I've ever channeled raw celestial energy through my body like that before, either," she said.

"Well you did super." Merle stroked a hand through her hair again. "You know I used to stroke Mavis's hair this way…"

"Mavis, who used to yell at me to unlock my knees when I'm casting because I fainted that time?" Annemarie chuckled. "It's hard to picture Lady Mavis being…innocent in the naïve way."

"She wasn't always a badass, you know. And sometimes she still acts like she's a kid again," Merle said. The first crackled nearby and he paused for a moment. "Being a badass doesn't make her not my kid, either. And what you did back there doesn't make you not my star student…"

Annemarie smiled. "I did do good, though, right?"

"Yeah."

For a while she's silent and then she almost drifts to sleep. She can feel Merle move away and she doesn't want to really move her neck for fear of drawing attention back to herself, but she can move her eyes until she sees where Magnus is. His back is to her, but she knows him to be awake by his movements. Daunte sleeps on the ground nearby, his face covered with a pillow to drown out snoring.

Annemarie decided that she was too awake to lay out here under the stars and just pretend to be sleep. She crawled to her feet dusting herself off and walking over to Magnus. She stood at his side and glanced down. He was fumbling with something small in his hands, moving it around with delicate touches. She could see it to be a ring. "Would you like some company?"

He glances up toward her startled. "Sure," he said. It was as many words as he could manage without tears at this point.

She sat down, pulling her knees up against her chest and leaning her head against them to look over at him. "What happened today?"

Magnus was silent for a long time and he just kept turning that ring over and over in his huge tanned hands. He exhaled. "I can't remember what happened to her. Not really. And when I fall asleep I'll forget what little I do remember," he said. "That's how it works. That's how it worked in the past Taako and Merle told me."

He held the ring up and looked through the hole in the middle of it, the hole where the love of his life's finger used to fit. "It's like I've lost her all over again."

"You can't stay awake forever to remember these small details. You remember Julia. You've always been able to talk about the important things about her," Annemarie said.

"Someone took her from me and I can't even remember that. I can't hold onto it because that memory didn't mean enough to me to fight for it?" Magnus said.

Annemarie shook her head. "Why does it matter who killed her or how she died? Revenge is not who a man like you is, Magnus."

"When you love someone…you want them—the good and the bad. I don't want to forget a single fight with her or a single flaw. This is my burden to carry just like the good times are mine…"

A thin smile appeared across her face. "That's not something I'll ever get to know," she pointed to the curled horns on the side of her head. "I'm not sure my Infernal blood will let me love or that I should. I'm dangerous to others and who wants to deal with a half demon monster that feeds off sex energy?" A small chuckle escaped her.

Magnus was staring at her now. "No one thinks you're a monster." And despite all of the things he was going through he wrapped his hand tight around the ring so as to not drop it and threw his arms around her. She could feel his tears on her robes.

"I'll remind you of Kalan and what happened everyday, if you want. I'll make it my duty to tell you after morning prayers," she whispered into his ear mid-hug.

Magnus let her go. "It's okay. It's a choice I made. Maybe at the time part of me just wanted to be rid of all of it and remember her life?"

"That's my boy," Annemarie laughed as she stood up, sweeping her robes underneath her. "You need to get some rest, though, okay?"

Magnus nodded. "Annemarie," he called to her when she was halfway back to the fire. "Julia would have really loved you. I can just tell."

"I'm sure from where she is, that she can tell too," Annemarie said.

* * *

We see a grand village in the forest lit by torchlight. Statues of the women who have shaped the world of this tribe line the entryway into the village and the road leading up to a longhouse. The sidewalks are made of sticks laid in a walkway and polished clean of bark with other sticks set beneath them to raise them up. Gardens dot the sides of the path where sunlight can get to them and a small stream bisects the little settlement.

Near the entry to the village we find the familiar form of the battlewagon, not tipped back onto its wheels with many of the wares picked clean. Inside the great longhouse many of the stuffed animals, trinkets, weapons and other things have been piled high on the floor. Guards look after the haul and are placed at points all around the village.

The fire inside the longhouse is dying down and atop a huge pallet made of animal skins of various types, Grabnar sleeps with the woman from before at his side. The woman who carried the bow staff. Grabnar isn't a linguist, Hell, he can't even read. But he knows enough to know that she's their queen and that they enjoyed the way he fought.

Really enjoyed it.

Grabnar was good at reading people. It was a skill that he had sort of fallen into in all his travels. And he recognized a damn good party when he saw one and these ladies knew what they were doing.


End file.
